London Acts of Kindness

There’s something that happens on a second consecutive morning of sunshine…Just last week I was ranting about the rude manners of Londoners on the sidewalks, but this morning’s commute dazzled me with 3 random acts of kindness. What the heck is going on here? People helping people? In London?!

But it’s true! As our mole eyes adjust to the brighter rays shining through our windows at dawn, they are apparently sharpening into clearer focus of others’ presence and consequently cultivating an enhanced awareness of other people and, by golly, their needs beyond the immediate ones our own.

* Drumroll, please *

The 3 Random Acts of Kindness that I saw this morning were:

A little girl dropped her jacket. On spying this, a young gentleman snatched it up and ran after her to return it, to which she and her friend kindly responded, “Thank you!”

A middle-aged woman boarded my standing-room-only Tube car. Just as she was getting situated beside me in standing position and about to grab the overhead bar for stability, a gentleman seated in a Priority Seating space beside the door jumped up and offered her the seat. To which she kindly responded, “Thank you!”

On exiting the Tube station, I rounded a corner in my brisk commuting-on-foot way, and a lady actually stepped out of my way! Though we both kept on our opposite courses, in my mind I was thinking, “Thank you!”

While these might sound unremarkable to you, again, I needs must direct you to my prior post on the usual ill street manners one encounters here. And I hope that every Londoner got to observe at least 3 random acts of kindness today to see the smiling “Thank you!”s that result from them; if each of us just went out of our way once each day for a stranger, think how those smiles and gratitude would multiply exponentially.